Odi et Amo
by Sinical-Sarchasm
Summary: In the wake of Sirius' death, Remus is going mad with grief while Severus maintains an even cooler demeanour than he always has. Concerned about both, Albus begins a strange partnership which threatens to transcend its "professional boundaries." A story a
1. Prelude

A.N.: Warnings: will be slash later (maybe semi-graphic, maybe not at all). If you're not comfortable with the idea, by all means leave. Anyway, I've finally gotten back into fanfiction out of a desperate effort to cure the boredom of Mr. Felix's AP History class, and so long as I get some reviews (hint hint, wink wink) I will be continuing this for quite some time, I hope. *Bonus points to any reviewer who correctly translates & identifies the allusion in the title*  
  
Disclaimer: If I were J.K Rowling I would have a lot more money, creativity, and fans, to name a few.  
  


***  


  
Meaning no disrespect, _sir_, Severus intoned (but the word was dripping with sardonicism, his voice, laden with disrespect) do you honestly expect me to go and plead with a dysfunction lycanthrope in an asylum in some godforsaken part of Wales so that he would just please come and... Severus exhaled loudly and fixed Albus with his favourite glare, the one which terrified the burliest of seven years but only made Albus' eyebrow quirk a centimeter upwards.   
  
Carry on. Albus was speaking softly, the tone not menacing but hardly comforting either.  
  
...and -- you could hear the quote marks around the following words team teach the Defense class with me? Severus' face refused to be expressive -- it always refused -- but his eyes were flashing, and his voice had, if such a thing were even possible, become more sardonic. _I'm shooting myself in the foot,'_ Severus found himself thinking vaguely to himself, _in both feet.'_ The realization did nothing to stop him.  
  
A momentary silence; then Albus leveled his eyes with Severus'. Yes, Severus, precisely. That's quite what I expect. His voice was only becoming calmer, almost lighter, as though in response to the flashing in Severus' onyx eyes.  
  
For a moment Severus was unable to respond. There was something physical in the despise he felt towards that calmness you could never wipe from Albus' voice, so real, so unlike Severus' own affectations of calm detachment. He shook his head briskly, found that doing so did little to resettle him, and opened his mouth at last: Albus, honestly -- he aspirated the h for emphasis -- you remember three years ago. Bloody hell, you remember nine years ago. Taking on a man in... He could not hold back a trace of the sneer which customarily graced his pale lips, and cursed himself. ...in Mr. Lupin's _unfortunate_ condition simply isn't wise, whether he leaves and I take his place during his monthly -- the sneer Severus had been holding back overflowed onto his face and into his voice -- _leaves of absence_ or not. Parents, members of the ministry, the international...well, it's just isn't prudent, Albus.  
  
Severus, I daresay I need not tell you that there are a fair few people who, were they familiar with _your_ peculiar circumstances, would think my judgment in employing yourself rather questionable, to say the least. Severus could swear he could see a trace of a familiar sneer on Albus' own lips, and he glared back, hissing silently,_'Then why _do _you tell me, if you really _daresay you need not.  
  
Severus opened his mouth, making as to respond, and then shut it again, unable to come up with an adequately biting response. He gave up.  
  
You know that I...Albus, you know that...  
  
I know that you, and I also know that Lupin.   
  
Gods, Albus... But his lips sealed shut. All right, even that aside, you know that...that... Severus' lungs exploded at last. Gods, Albus, the man hasn't been well since Black's death... Severus' voice, usually so curt, trailed off unnaturally as though he were trying to both speak and not speak the last two words.  
  
Am I to presume that you have been perfectly well, and then Albus added, a bit louder, after Black's death?  
  
Severus flinched involuntarily -- _almost imperceptibly_, thought Albus -- but spoke bracingly all the same. You don't see _me_ acting like a madman because of Black, do you? You don't see _me _catatonic because of Black, do you? Or psychotic, because of Black? I'm just the same cold, icy Severus, aren't I? Aren't I?  
  
So it seems. Albus was sighing the deep, sad sigh that always made Severus want to scream. Yes, Severus, you seem just the same man. And that is just what worries me. The only thing, Severus reflected, that he might hate more than that one sigh was the caring, didactic tone which Albus took on with children and, occasionally, Severus. The one he was taking on now. Albus was shaking his head, Severus vaguely perceived. Hasn't it occurred to you that I might have your interests as well as Remus' at hand? Albus watched as Severus' visage endured an infinite series of changes -- disgust and confusion featured prominently among them -- and he sighed heavily.   
  
_Goddamn you, Albus, you and your sighs_. Severus rubbed his temples.  
  
Well then, and Albus' voice suddenly became unnaturally brisk. Well then. It's time I go along. I trust you'll go and see Remus about this now?  
  
It looked as though the action cost him all the endurance he possessed, but Severus mutely nodded his assent, unable to do anything else to the request of the only man he knew who kept an absurd yet somehow touching blind faith in Severus' capacity for good. And as he left the office in Albus' wake, Severus reluctantly found that while his head was wandering uncertainly -- almost drunkenly -- going nowhere in particular, his feet were leading him, quite deliberately, towards the ward where Remus lay.


	2. Wincing

Remus opened his eyes early that morning in spite of himself, in spite of the sleeping potion they had given him just a few hours before. _They always forget to make it tronger for us lucky lycanthrope_s, he thought to himself. He laughed raucously. The on-duty night shift healer glared.

After all, he was supposed to be asleep.

Glance over. His roommate was placid again, under a calming spell and restraints. Remus winced, but only a little. He had given up wincing, at least for the time. It hurt his lips too much.

And his cheeks.

When he tried to recall, in Group, what had landed him here, he never could quite remember. Was it the time Harry found him, meandering through the streets, trembling and psychotic. Or was it the half-assed suicide attempt, or when he climbed into bed and couldn't get out again? Remus had forgotten, by now, even which had come first, and which last, and when. But he knew it had started with the wincing.

So he had learned to stop. After all, it hurt his lips.

And his cheeks.

Sleep would not come again, but Remus shut his eyes all the same. His hand clenched a wad of cool sheets to his right, and he turned his head into the thin pillow.

Still awake, he dreamt in florescent colors:

_Headquarters. Sirius and Severus are fighting again. One could almost forget about the real war, watching them fight each other like this._

_Enter Remus._

_"why the hell should I care "_

_"You should care, _Snivellus_" Sirius reached out "because I am holding you by the scruff of your rat-bastard neck. Now who's the coward, Snivelly? Now who?"_

_"You are." Severus' voice was choked but still icy and level. "You are, because while I go out and risk my " Severus was about to say something, but thought the better of it. "risk you don't even _ /i know i _ what to spy on the Dark Lord, and while your little friends are putting their necks on the line to save your godson, you just stay by the fire in your comfortable little ancestral home. You disgust me, Black. Get out of my sight."_

_"Fine. I will." He was, Remus noticed with a pang, still the same Sirius as he had known in his school days. Still the same boldness, still the same glint in his eyes, still the same tragic flaws. Still all the same things he had fallen in love with so many years before._

_Sirius made a move to leave. Remus began to speak, but he choked on the words. All he could do was wince._

Remus felt his present self trying to wince; he supposed (in that painful sort of self-analysis weeks at a mental hospital will breed) that he was doing this out of some kind of perverse sympathy for his dream self. He flung his eyes wide open to stop himself.

The first thing he saw was Severus face, for a moment not sneering, but merely bored. Then

"At last, the werewolf awakes." (Sneering again.)

To disoriented at first to ask why his best mates' arch-nemesis was visiting him in the mental hospital, Remus muttered, "What do you mean, at last? I've been awake for hours."

"Hours? You bloody bastard. I've been waiting for the last half-hour so as not to wake you up, on orders of this woman here. After all, who am I to disregard the instructions of one of the most well-regarded Psychic Healers of our time?"

A weak laugh escaped Remus. He supposed he ought to be thankful to the Sister Marje's Hospital for the Psychically Ill in Wales for taking him in, a werewolf, for virtually nothing, but their staff was not among the most well-regarded. He let himself laugh a little more in spite of himself and in spite of Severus, wondering at the feeling.

He had forgotten how it felt to laugh.

Then, remembering "What are you here, for anyway?"

"Sending you good wishes." Severus sneered.

A silence, then "That wasn't funny, Snape."

"Well, I'm sorry for failing to amuse you."

"You still haven't told me why you're here."

"Dumbledore wants to offer you a job. Team teaching Defense with me next year."

"That wasn't funny either."

"It wasn't meant to be."

"You're really asking me to do that?"

Severus exhaled, exasperated. "What else does it sound like I'm asking you, Lupin?"

"Well." A part of Remus was inclined to say no, but then again, he thought, _What the hell do I have to lose. _A lyric from a muggle song his mother had once sung came to mind: "freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." _One hell of a freedom I've got here_, he thought bitterly.

"Well?" Severus' voice, like acid, reminding him of where he was.

"Well, why not."

"Yes or no?"

"Yes." Remus said, with as much firmness as he could muster. "And Severus?" he looked over his shoulder at the man, not sure what he was about to say. "Thank you for coming. I never knew you cared."

Severus swept out of the stiff chair and stiffly replied: "I never did."

And without realizing it, for the first time in so many weeks, Remus winced.


	3. Feasting with the Wolf

Scanning the hall during the Feast, Severus could not help noticing the conspicuous absence of a number of students he was sure had been present for last year's meal. Mostly Hufflepuffs no surprises there but a fair number of Gryffindors, too. Go figure. _Bravery, my ass._

But even a few Slytherins were gone, too.

Severus wondered, idly, if the overprotective dunderheads who called themselves these children's parents were really so scared of the Dark Lord if they were, he smirked, they should have taken fright a year ago or if the news of Lupin's appointment had really travelled so fast.

Probably the latter, he soon concluded people are alwys frightened over the wrong things, just look at the 3rd year Gryffindors and with no small thanks to Lucius. Apprehended Death Eater or not, Severus highly doubted Lucius' powers of malicious, self-serving gossip mongering and suave person persuation had diminished in the least.

In fact, if memory served and it had better serve; the meeting was only last night Severus knew they hadn't. He grimaced, ever so slightly, and shook himself inwardly. No need to think about _that_ now. Save it for another day.

"...And now, I'm pleased to introduce or reintroduce, as the case may be our _two_" Severus scowled; why did the old man have to make such a bloody big deal about that little fact? To Severus himself, to the psychic healers, to the staff. And now to that detestable group of children.

He sometimes wondered why he even bothered anymore but then, of course, he remembered. There _was _the minor fact that, aside from Dumbledore no one or at least, no one doing anything with even a semblance of legality to it was going to give him a snowflake's chance in Hades of being hired, and he wasn't much in a mood to be left as destitute and without means as Lupin was.

Or rather, as Lupin _had been._

_Lord,_ Severus thought,_ do I hate that man_. On further thought, he wasn't even sure who "that man" was, whether he was Albus or

"Remus Lupin," Albus was continuing

but in any case, he most certainly hated him. Severus hadn't been paying much attention when Albus had announced his names a few seconds earlier after a while, all of the beginning of term speeches begin to sound like a mediocre composer's variations on a theme, and Severus was sure that Albus would have mentioned any vaguely interesting bits and pieces of the speech already at the staff meeting two days ago, along with the many utterly uninteresting bits he'd mentioned but he was sure the sounds of applause echoing in the Great Hall had risen significantly after Lupin's name was mentioned. Severus was just jealous enough and quite resentful enough to let this fact get a rise out of him. "Bloody little gits," he muttered under his breath. "Prefer a violent beast over a violently tempered man, do they?"

Next to him, the violent beast shifted uncomfortably in his seat before continuing to scarf down roast beef, and the violently tempered man almost felt a tinge of regret at his words.

"...kindly consented to fill his space during the two weeks surrounding Prof. Lupin's monthly illnesses..."

Almost.

But really, it was Albus' own fault. Severus was certain that he had _not _been kind in his consent, and, to his mind, he hadn't really consented at all. He hadn't had much of a choice, whatever Albus might try to say to the contrary.

Severus turned his gaze from Remus, who had shifted his hungry attention from the roast to a large pile of potatoes (by the looks of it, the man hadn't eaten in days, and Severus wondered for a moment whether the starvation hadn't been of Lupin's own volition, or if it was simply a product of his poverty) and looked over towards Albus.

Damnit, but he really did hate that man.

Well, Severus corrected himself almost instantly, that wasn't entirely true. There were parts of Albus which he actually rather liked. The part that paid him, for instance, and that part that made Albus the only wizard the Dark Lord had ever feared. And the part that gave even the most insolent seventh year pause. That part was really rather amusing to watch.

It was just that there were so many other parts of Albus which Severus utterly despised. From the bottom of his heart, or, Severus thought wryly and not without a trace of bitterness, from whatever was left there, anyway. He hated the part of Albus which had never stopped Potter and his gang, and had in fact let Black off with only a slap on the wrist for nearly killing him. The part of Albus which, oh-so-calmly, held everyone around him, pupetts on strings, as he manipulated them while all the while appearing utterly benign and in Minerva's words "with only the best of intentions." The part of him which cared so little when it mattered, and then cared so much when the most caring thing to do would be not to care at all.

But most of all, Severus realized, he hated the part of Albus which trusted him. The part which had put Severus forever in his debt.

"Bloody self-destructive git, I am," Severus muttered inaudibly. Turning his attention back to the Great hall once more, though, he noticed something.

Albus wasn't there.

Nor, for that matter, was nearly anyone else.

Nearly. And therein lay the problem. Lupin remained there, sitting next to him, no longer shoveling potatoes down his throat but just watching Severus with an expression which combined amusement and thoughtfulness in precise measures.

"Shit," Severus swore softly.

Lupin meerly smiled a little more, and Severus could swear that, were the wolf's lips capable of it, that smile would have just become a smirk.


End file.
